Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro has warned that if his country is attacked, it will move into a phase of active military preparedness to defend its national integrity and sovereignty.
On Friday, CNN reported citing sources that US President Donald Trump was considering various options for carrying out military strikes against drug cartels in Venezuela, including on Venezuelan soil, with a broader goal of weakening Maduro.
"If Venezuela were attacked in any way, it would move into a stage of planned and organized armed struggle by all its people against aggression, whether local, regional, or national, in defense of peace, territorial integrity, sovereignty, and our people," Maduro said on Friday.
The Venezuelan leader announced the start of training a militia to defend the country, which involves citizens in the national defense system.
Maduro presented a diagram of the operational readiness levels of the defense forces and explained that Venezuela was in the yellow phase of integrated defense. The Venezuelan leader explained that, currently,
his country was in the phase of non-violent struggle, with political, informational and diplomatic means involved.
On Tuesday, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio said that the US military had struck a drug-carrying vessel in the southern Caribbean that he claimed had left Venezuela. Rubio said that Trump was going to wage war on "narco-terrorist" organizations.
